Monument to the "Martyrs of the Resistance of the Basses Alpes"

In 1948, a bronze plaque bearing the image of Martin Bret was affixed, with the inscription "Martin-Bret, departmental head of the Resistance." Paul Louis Martin-Bret was born on July 18, 1898, in Marseille, on Rue-de-la-République, to a seamstress mother and a banker father. Louis Martin-Bret was very involved in the political life of the department. Secretary of the socialist federation SFIO of Basses-Alpes from 1927, he was elected councilor of the district of Sisteron-Forcalquier in October 1934, then in October 1937, general councilor of Basses-Alpes (for Manosque), elected to the departmental finance commission. Hostile to the new Vichy regime, he joined the Combat movement and then MUR. Louis Martin-Bret was responsible for the Alps, under the pseudonym Michel. On Saturday, July 15, 1944, a meeting of the CDL of the Basses-Alpes was held in Oraison with, among others, Marcel André, François Cuzin, Maurice Favier, Émile Latil, Louis Martin-Bret, Jean Piquemal. Some of them, including Martin-Bret, spent the night there. The CDL meeting continued the next day, in a room above the Café de France, managed by Léon Gaubert. Disguised as resistance fighters, a unit of Brandenburgers commanded by the Marseille SD arrested several members of the CDL and other resistance fighters. Like his comrades from the departmental Liberation Committee, Louis Martin-Bret was transferred to Marseille, then shot at Signes on July 18, and summarily buried with 28 other victims in the "first grave." His remains, transported to the morgue of the Saint-Pierre cemetery in Marseille (coffin 689) on September 17, 1944, were among the first 32 identified.